During the early morning hours of June 27, 1957, an early season hurricane named Audrey roared ashore into Southwest Louisiana and Southeastern Texas. Audrey spread a massive storm surge across most of Cameron parish, and across the southern halves of Vermilion, Iberia, and St. Mary parishes, causing total devastation in property and many lives lost. Figure 1 displays the areas inundated with selected high water mark levels. Figure 2 illustrates a post storm SLOSH (Sea, Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes) model of Audrey's passage, with an animation available in 15 minute increments.

Hurricane Audrey ranks as the 7th deadliest hurricane to strike the United States (3rd deadliest within Louisiana) in modern record keeping, with at least 500 deaths. The exact number will never be known, as many perished in the storm surge in Cameron and Vermilion parishes, and many missing persons were never found. Hurricane Audrey is also noted as being the strongest and only major hurricane to make landfall within the United States in the month of June.

Table 1 lists a summary of highest sustained and peak winds, as well as lowest pressure for Hurricane Audrey across Louisiana and Southeast Texas. Notice the unusually high gusts recorded at Lafayette (86 mph) & Baton Rouge (69 mph), some 70 to 120 miles east of the eye. Since Audrey made land fall during the day, the atmosphere was more unstable, thus allowing the convective rain bands to transfer the much higher winds aloft to the surface. Figure 4 shows an estimation of highest wind gust contours across Louisiana and Southeast Texas.

Figure 3. Mosaic of MPS-7 23-cm weather radars from Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, England Air Force Base in Alexandria, Louisiana, and Houma, Louisiana on June 27, 1957 at 1 PM CST. Even several hours after landfall, Audrey's eye is still intact over Beauregard Parish, some 60 miles inland. Click here for an hourly animation. (Imagery courtesy of Texas A&M).